


Burn Baby Burn

by dgalerab



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Firefighter Eddie Kaspbrak, M/M, Richie Tozier is a Mess, does getting dragged out of your burning apartment by a cute guy count as a meet cute?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:35:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21977446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dgalerab/pseuds/dgalerab
Summary: Richie's apartment burns down. But on the bright side, the firefighter who saved him is hot.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 99
Kudos: 1043





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i can and i will write a firefighter au in every fandom at only the slightest indication that it might make a tiny bit of sense

Richie knew one thing for sure - he was never leaving going to leave his glasses in the bathroom after an evening shower ever again.

By the time he woke up on that fateful evening, the flames were already through the window. Apparently, the gas had leaked in one of the bottom apartments, sending the whole building up flames far faster than anyone was prepared for. He’d tried to grab his glasses, but the smoke was so thick he’d given it up when he was wheezing so hard he could barely stand and he couldn’t make out a single thing in the bathroom.

Instead, he tried to make his way to the door. He’d always liked living up on the fourth floor, something freeing about being able to look down on the city, but now he was regretting it as he thought of all the stairs he’d have to take to get outside, which might have a variable amount of flames.

He reached for the apartment door, only for it to burn his hand, which, he decided with his muddied brain, was probably bad. His options had narrowed down considerably. He stumbled, squinting in the dark to see which window had the least amount of flames licking at it.

He wasn’t sure if it was just his eyesight that was bad or if he was simply just very, very dizzy.

He staggered towards the nearest window, but he was suddenly on the ground. 

_ Well fuck, _ he thought,  _ at least I’ll die before I burn to death. _

The door exploded off its hinges, and suddenly there was yelling. “I got one!”

Richie wheezed, unsure what he’d say even if he had enough air in his lungs to say anything, and then he was being hauled over someone’s shoulder. There was yelling all around him, the hissing of hoses and extinguishers, but it was all a hot, glowing blur.

He vaguely tried to follow what story they were on, but it all melted together until suddenly the cool night air hit his skin. After all the flames, the cold felt like it burned, and he would have hissed if his lungs could cooperate. 

He was set down on a hard surface, and there was suddenly something being pressed over his face. He flailed for a moment before his sluggish brain realized that the something was letting him do something more like breathing than he’d been doing for the past several minutes, as well as the fact that the flailing wasn’t doing much because someone was holding him steady with a firm, muscular arm.

“Alright, there we go,” someone said. “Yeah. That oxygen mask isn’t so bad, is it?”

It was a nice voice, and he was making a good point, no doubt, but everything was so blurry and his brain was being so  _ slow, _ and Richie suddenly felt horribly claustrophobic. The few figures moving around him feeling like an entire mob bearing down on him, the mask was tight on his face and he couldn’t see where he was. He squirmed, lungs protesting with failed attempts to gasp in a breath.

“Bob, we’ve got a--” a new voice said, urgent.

“No, no, I think he’s panicking, I got this,” said the same voice as before, and Richie was fairly certain it belonged to the person holding him. “Hey. Hey, buddy, look at me.”

In the dark, without his glasses, Richie wasn’t even sure he trusted himself to find the guy’s outline.

“Can’t see,” he tried to gasp.

The oxygen mask was pulled away a little. “What was that?”

“Can’t see,” Richie managed to wheeze. He hated being without his glasses. He hated it. It was worse without being able to talk, without his best line of defense.

“Oh, shit,” the guy said. “Was… Did you have a dog, or…?”

Richie shook his head. “Glasses.”

“Oh,” the guy said. “Okay. Alright, so everything’s probably pretty blurry and confusing now, huh?”

Richie nodded.

A hand wrapped around his own and squeezed. “Okay, well, the fire’s just about out, so I’m gonna stay with you, okay?”

Richie nodded again.

“I’m Eddie,” he said, shaking the hand he was holding with a playful shake. A sense of humor, then. Richie could work with that.

“Richie,” Richie managed, before wheezing. Panic surged again as his lungs refused to inflate. Oh, fuck, he couldn’t  _ breathe, he couldn’t… _

“Hey, whoa there,” Eddie said, squeezing his hand again. “In through your nose, out through your mouth, you’re fine.”

Richie gave it a try, and it appeared to be true, even though the breaths came out shaky, too weak to be whimpers but doing their best. 

“There we go,” Eddie said. He sounded extremely gentle. Richie wondered if he looked gentle too. “I know it sucks. I used to think I had asthma.”

“Think?” Richie mouthed.

“Yeah, it’s a long story.” 

“Nowhere to be,” Richie wheezed.

“It’s a bummer, dude, trust me. My mom was crazy.”

“Sexy,” Richie wheezed.

“Sexy?” Eddie asked, like he’d heard wrong.

Richie nodded, trying to give Eddie his hammiest wink. It was maybe not the best idea to antagonize the guy who’d dragged him out of a burning building and was now sitting with him so he didn’t freak out from being blinded, but Richie was buzzing with nerves and the fact that he couldn’t get more than two words out without choking was like a boot to the throat. So what if he was gonna try to make an I-fucked-your-mom joke without words?

Eddie snorted. “The mommy issues or the crazy mom herself?”

Richie held up two fingers.

Eddie chuckled. “Okay, well, if making a pass at my mom is gonna keep you calm, sure.”

Richie gave him a feeble thumbs up with one hand and squeezed the hand still holding his with the other.

“You’ve got a funny way of showing your gratitude, huh?” Eddie teased.

Richie nodded, glad his joke had at least inspired some amusement.

“Jackass,” Eddie said, without much bite.

Richie did his best to laugh, but his lungs failed him. He settled for clinging to Eddie’s hand for dear life.

“Okay, well,” Eddie said, before he trailed off, speaking to someone softly for a bit. He leaned back into Richie’s line of -- for lack of a better word -- sight. “Okay, we’re gonna take you to the hospital, alright? If you want, I’ll stay with you for the ride.”

Richie nodded feverishly. He didn’t want to be alone. He didn’t want to let go of the warm hand in his own.

“Hey, Ben!” Eddie shouted. “This guy’s freaking out and fuckin’ blind, I’m going with him to the hospital!”

Richie huffed what was almost a laugh, and let them roll him into the ambulance.

**

Unfortunately, between the fact that it’s ass o’clock in the morning and the lack of oxygen in his system and the countless bloodtests and X-rays he had to go through, he didn’t get to talk with Eddie much more, even though Richie really wanted to hear more from the lifesaver who had rolled with a mom joke that Richie couldn’t even say out loud. But the comforting blurry shape of Eddie’s jacket did remain reliably near all night, occasionally gently talking him through what was happening and trying to keep him from fidgeting all over the place and knocking his IV out.

He was mostly asleep when he heard Stan’s voice, stirring at the familiar sound only to find his blurry outline and Bev’s familiar red blur talking to, presumably, Eddie. “So he’s had all the tests he needs?”

“Yep. He’s good to go, apparently,” Eddie replied. “I was a little worried about a concussion when he made a pass at my mother basically in sign language, but…”

Bev laughed.

Stan sighed his patented sigh. “No, he’s… he’s just like that.”

“I noticed,” Eddie said, and if Richie wasn’t so tired he’d be analyzing that tone for any sign of attraction. (Because Richie definitely looked super sexy right now, covered in soot, blinking owlishly and twitching like a crazed ferret.)

Richie waved at Stan as obnoxiously as he could manage with the IV in his wrist and the oxygen cannula in his nose that he really didn’t want to rip out. “Aloha, Staniel, Beverly,” he croaked.

“Oh, god, you sound bad,” Stan said, sounding sympathetic enough to confirm that Richie probably also  _ looked _ bad. “I brought your spare glasses.”

Richie did his best not to cry in relief, because jeez, it’d be embarrassing to reveal just how much it scared him not to be able to fucking  _ see. _ Bev seemed to notice anyway, though, because she clucked gently as she slid Richie’s glasses onto his face for him.

“Ah, there you are,” Richie croaked. It was surprisingly good to see actual details after a blurry evening of smudged blobs sticking needles into him.

“Uh-huh,” Stan said, sighing.

“You’ve seen better days, sweetheart,” Bev said.

“Oh, and my hero,” Richie managed, though his throat was protesting this many words right out of the smoky gate. He leaned around Stan and regretted it immediately.

“Wow, you look super dumb in those,” Eddie said, with the slightest smile on his lips. On his perfectly shaped, pink lips, ashes smudged up his chiseled jaw like he was an actual action hero with a full makeup team. Somehow, the chiseled jaw didn’t manage to make his face less  _ soft, _ though, which was just  _ cheating,  _ really, to have such a nice, strikingly masculine face with such soft lips and big brown eyes.

“Good ‘nough f’r your mom,” Richie managed, before he was thankfully interrupted by a coughing fit.

“Hun,” Bev said, patting his hand, “no.”

“Alright, jackass,” Eddie said, shaking his head in a gesture much too fond for an  _ extremely _ sexy stranger. It would be a shame if Eddie had hauled his ass out of a burning building only for him to combust in the hospital a few hours later. “It seems you’re in good hands now and you’ve got your eyes back, so I’ll leave you. Get some good rest.”

Richie, for some goddamn reason, saluted him.

Eddie smiled and waved, and then he was gone. 

Richie looked at Stan and Bev, trying to convey how emotionally devastating it was to find out that Eddie was hot after a night like this with his eyes.

Stan, however, didn’t seem to understand what counted as the real important stuff, because he immediately launched into, “Alright, we need to get you home and showered and rested, because if I’m going to be on the phone with your insurance company all day tomorrow, you need to be conscious enough for me to wake you up and double check your personal information with you.”

Beverly, too, appeared to be more concerned with wiping the soot off his face than consoling him in his time of despair.

This was silly, Richie wanted to point out, because Stan knew Richie’s social security number better than Richie did, but he didn’t manage to get as far as saying so before he realized something much worse than anything else that had happened to him in the past 24 hours, including the loss of probably his entire apartment. “Stanley! I didn’t get his last name!”

**

Richie found himself feeling like an actual baby for the next few days.

He’d tried to sleep on the couch - it was a gloriously comfortable couch, really - but Bev and Stan had not entertained that for a second. He’d gotten shoved into Bev’s bed and tucked in like a burrito, and had proceeded to sleep a solid fourteen hours. 

And even after that, he found himself trapped in a cycle of napping or fully processing the fact that all his belongings - other than the stuff still in his parents’ attic in Maine - were now reduced to a pile of ash and a closet’s worth of clothes and a box of photos. Some of his best shirts, however, had made it, so that was cool, he supposed.

Maybe it was the fact that he’d never gotten too attached to his things, or the fact that he’d brought a lot of the most important stuff back here to Stan and Bev’s place like some kind of stray cat trying to see how far he could move in before they noticed, or the fact that they had an actual little goblin cat that liked to stand on his head and knead when he got too sad, but that processing did very little to overtake Richie’s contemplation of the  _ real _ tragedy:

Mr. Eddie Fireman, who had dragged Richie out of a burning building and stayed with him the whole night without giving Richie his last name or his number. Did he even have a last name, Richie wondered? Or was he simply an angel formed out of Richie’s dreams who had been brought to life by his desperation? And was he ripped under that fireman’s jacket? He was probably ripped under that fireman’s jacket.

“Okay, are you alive?” Stan asked. “I need your help collecting the money from the insurance company. Unfortunately, I can’t sign in your name.”

“Ah, Staniel,” Richie said, still trying to slap Eddie’s beautiful, beautiful face on a glistening bodybuilder body in his mind’s eye. If only he remembered how tall Eddie had actually been. Richie was pretty sure he’d been shorter than Richie, but Richie was pretty tall, so… “Even your powers are limited.”

“I got you a 50 grand,” Stan said. “So stop moping. You’re welcome.”

Richie’s brain crashed against a wall. A wall of money. “You what?”

“Yes, Richie, I’ve been haggling with your insurance company for days,” Stan said. “What did you think I was doing?”

“50 grand? My apartment had bedbugs like three different times, it wasn’t worth 50 grand!”

“Well, actually, if you look at the median real estate prices in that part of town, it’s…”

“No, sssh-sh-sh,” Richie managed. “Don’t explain it, I don’t want to know about your mafia dealings.”

Stan rolled his eyes.

“The fuck are we even gonna do with that kind of money?” Richie asked. “Blow it on cocaine? What’s that, like, 50 kilograms of cocaine?”

“You really don’t know anything about anything, do you?” Stan sighed. “No. We’ll buy you a bed, new clothes, and move you in here, and then we’ll put it in a savings account.”

“I’m moving in?” Richie asked.

“Yes,” Stan said, with a look that said,  _ I know you’re already at least three quarters of the way moved in, you were just too proud to inform us you were  _ moving in _ moving in. _

Richie nodded. 

Richie had lived with Stan up until he’d started dating Connor, at which point he’d moved in with him. Then Bev had moved in with Stan about a year ago after she’d finally gotten a restraining order against her ex, and Richie’s relationship had imploded a few months ago - but he’d been too sheepish to admit that Bev and Stan had been right about good ol’ Connor too-closeted-to-be-in-a-healthy-relationship-with-a-dude Bowers to ask if he could move back in, so he’d just stayed in the apartment after Connor had taken off with his band, which Richie could now admit wasn’t a very good band at al.

But it seemed that, whether it was because of the fire or not, Stanley was not interested in any kind of I-told-you-so’s. 

“Oh, and I want to buy a thank you card for Eddie,” Stan said. “For staying with you all night. We’ll swing by the station after we--”

Richie was already out the door before he realized he hadn’t put on shoes.

**

“Oh my God,” Bev said. She’d met up with them after they’d been to the bank, which was somehow even more boring when you were anxious to meet a hot firefighter afterwards. “You have a big crush on this guy, don’t you?”

“What? Me? No.”

“Well, the fact that he didn’t leave you in the building to choke to death makes him better than the last guy,” Stan muttered under his breath. Bev smacked him.

“Okay,  _ that _ was baby gay’s first boyfriend,” Richie said. “I’m older and wiser now and I will not throw myself at the first guy willing to make out with me in the back of a divebar while we’re both drunk.”

“Mhmm,” Stan said. “Just the first guy who did his job saving your life?”

_ “And _ stayed with me all night!  _ And _ laughed at my mom joke!”

“I can’t believe that’s actually a point in anyone’s favor,” Stan sighed. “But you have a small point. A  _ small _ one.”

“Oh, momma,” Bev said as they rounded the corner to the station. 

Richie, foolishly, followed her gaze, only to see a very attractive man washing a firetruck. The only way this could be any more of a wet dream would be if the man was half naked, and even so, Richie wasn’t sure if his biceps were made more attractive by the desire to push his t-shirt sleeves over his shoulders.

Even Stan seemed flustered, and Stan was not easy to fluster. He cleared his throat. “Hello. We’re looking for Eddie?”

The man looked at them. “What do you want with Eddie?”

He looked like he was trying to vet them as politely as possible. Did Eddie have enemies? That too was sexy.

“We didn’t get his full name,” Stan replied, while Richie tried not to melt into a puddle considering Eddie as some kind of superhero fireman, ticking off the local Batman villain style arsonist with his sexy muscles and kind voice. “But he was very kind to my friend here other day and we wanted to thank him.” 

“Ah,” the man said. “You must be the blind… um…” He blushed. 

Richie had to shove Bev behind him to keep her thirst from getting in the way of  _ his _ thirst. “Motherfucker?” he suggested.

“Yeah, that’s… yeah, that’s what he said,” the man replied, blushing harder. “You’ll find him upstairs, in the office.” 

“Oh, wow,” Bev said, staring at his abs. Stan grabbed her and Richie by the neck and shoved them upstairs, which seemed unfair, because Richie was only staring a little.

“He  _ mentioned _ me,” Richie informed them proudly. Bev winked, and Stan’s grip on the back of his neck only tightened like he was trying to cuff an unruly toddler.

With each step up the stairs, Richie found himself regretting this more and more. Of course he wanted to see Eddie, but to what end? It seemed Eddie had joked about him to his coworkers, but was that a good thing? Jeez, maybe he’d been wildly annoyed and just didn’t want to tell a soot-soaked, wheezing jackass he wasn’t funny or interesting or… 

“Oh, it’s you,” Eddie said as he stepped out of the office. He was wearing a t-shirt instead of the full firefighter’s jacket, which revealed that he had at  _ least _ three tattoos: a small paper boat just above one elbow, a flower on his bicep and a black LOVER with the middle V in blood red across his forearm.

Richie was tempted to try to run and slide down one of those famous poles in terror, only to find that they were on the other side of the firehouse. “It’s me,” he said cheerily. “The motherfucker.”

Eddie snorted. “Ben mentioned that, huh?”

“Not in so many words, but yeah,” Richie said. Eddie looked like he’d been joking about Richie in a positive way, but on the other hand he had  _ tattoos _ and there was no way that didn’t put him out of Richie’s league.

“Throat still a little raw?” Eddie asked.

“Raw is how I fucked your--” Richie blurted before Bev slapped a hand over his mouth.

“We’re making sure he’s drinking tea with honey,” Stan said. 

“Don’t worry, our trashmouth will be good as new any time now,” Bev said. “And he’s had no trouble talking about you.”

Richie slapped her hand away. “Haha, she kids. I haven’t even mentioned you. Who are you even?”

Eddie smiled, looking him up and down. Richie hadn’t been so terrified of popping an inconventient boner since middle school. “Don’t worry, it’s pretty normal for someone to leave an impression when they save your life.”

“Well, you’re also hot,” Bev said.

Richie pinched her side.

“Thanks,” Eddie said. He was still eyeing Richie. “Anyway, I’d say you clean up nicely but clearly you’re still scrounging for clothes.”

“Oh, no, these are my clothes. Amazingly they survived the fire,” Richie said, kicking himself. How hard would it have been to lie and tell Captain Sexy that he was only wearing a Hawaiian shirt over a Popeye tee because he’d lost all his clothes to the fire that Eddie had personally dragged him out of? “I dress like this on purpose.”

“Oh wow,” Eddie said, raising his brows.

Throwing himself out the window also seemed a fairly good idea at the moment. “Yeah,” Richie said. “Uh, anyway, we’re not stalking you or anything, we just wanted to… uh… well. Say thank you.”

Stan sighed and handed Eddie the thank you card. “We really appreciate you taking care of Richie all night. He’s a character, but we really would be lost without him.”

“Oh, it’s no problem,” Eddie said. “I used to have mean panic attacks as a kid. Or, you know, I still do, but I know how to manage them. I don’t like to leave people who are panicking alone.”

If only there was a way to have a panic attack for the rest of his life, Richie thought. “I didn’t get your last name!” he blurted instead.

Eddie laughed. “Kaspbrak.”

“Eddie Kaspbrak,” Richie breathed, feeling weak in the knees. “Hey, I work on the corner of West and Harrison, I can thank you with free drinks for life.”

“I’ll remember that,” Eddie said, grinning. “Maybe when I’m not on call.”

“Aye aye Captain,” Richie said, saluting him and then regretting it.

“Just Lieutenant, I’m afraid,” Eddie said. “But I’ll let you know if I’m promoted.”

“Oh, good, yes,” Richie said, because apparently men with a  _ rank _ were now a  _ thing _ Richie had. “Anyway, you’re on call, we’re busy, I’m… Goodbye.”

He turned to go, and nearly fell down the stairs.

Eddie didn’t seem to mind.

**

The bar caught fire a whopping two days later.

The newest bartender, Charles, had been trying to flambee something, and had instead flambeed a bottle of whiskey into something of a Molotov cocktail. It hadn’t spread very far before they had put it out with two fire extinguishers and a jacket, but the fire department had been called anyway.

Richie had had a moment of hope that this wasn’t how he’d see the love of his life again, because the fireman who was checking that everything was in order was a black guy even taller than Richie. He took their names, and Richie had no sooner said Richie Tozier before the guy was grinning. “Oh, Eddie’s motherfucker,” he said.

Richie wanted to ask just how many people Eddie had told about him and exactly what he’d said alongside it, but mostly he just wanted the ground to swallow him up.

“Hey, Eddie, your motherfucker is working today!” the guy called, sticking his head out the door.

And lo and behold, there he was.

“You know, the free drinks were incentive enough,” Eddie said, crossing his arms as he leaned on the doorframe. He had a very severe face that made it hard to tell if Richie was reading his teasing tone right or if he was actually in trouble with Lieutenant Sexy. “You didn’t have to go this far.”

“What? No, no,” Richie said. The fact that he was probably shaking (because apparently it was very scary to suddenly see everything go up into flames after being nearly choked to death by a fire that ate away your entire apartment) worked in his favor, but it also probably looked pretty bad to be in your second fire of as many weeks while having a crush on a firefighter. “This isn’t… I swear I wasn’t arsoning.”

“Uh-huh,” Eddie said. His tall friend was laughing, so Richie was, it seemed, not in trouble with Lieutenant Sexy. “But if you need to reach me, my number tends to be faster.”

“Oh!” Richie yelped, heart soaring for a moment before realizing the downside of this miracle. “Oh, fuck. I uh… I don’t have a phone. I mean, the melted hunk of metal is probably still there somewhere, but I don’t think I could really, uh, like, save your number into it.”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Do you have a pen?”

Richie nearly dived behind the bar to search for one before coming back with a Sharpie. “Does this work?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, grabbing Richie’s wrist and tugging. Richie let him with all the resistance of melted butter, letting Eddie pull his arm over and scrawl his number in large, clear writing across the inside of Richie’s forearm.

If Richie wasn’t shaking before, he sure as hell was now.

“You should probably take the rest of the day off,” Eddie murmured, handing him back the Sharpie. “You seem kind of rattled. And maybe you can buy yourself a new phone.”

“Yessir, Lieutenant Kaspbrak,” Richie said, standing there with the Sharpie gripped in his hand, trying to come to terms that he seemed to be developing a kink for this rank thing in real time.

Eddie patted his arm, then jabbed a finger at his friend warning. “Not a word out of you, Mike.”

“Okay, okay,” Mike said. “Nice to meet you, Richie.”

Richie waved awkwardly at him before Eddie dragged him outside. 

“Fuck me,” Richie said, dropping his hand.

Charles raised a brow. “For what it’s worth, I think he’s trying to.”

“Shut up and clean up your mess, Charlie,” Richie managed. “And I’m going to lay down in the back before I swoon like a Jane Austen character.”

**

The next traitor was the cat.

Richie had never been anything but nice to Margaret, Stan’s hairless cat, despite the fact that she meowed like a chain smoker and looked like a featherless chicken, and yet here she was, whining and crying until he climbed up into the tree she’d somehow gotten herself into, only to reveal that she could hop down onto their apartment’s windowsill just  _ fine,  _ thank you very much.

Except for the fact that Richie could not do the same, and now he also wasn’t sure how he’d gotten up here.

He groaned.

“Hey!” he shouted at a random teenager walking by on his phone. “Hey, sorry, could you call the fire department, I can’t get down.”

The kid gave him a withering look that only a fifteen year old could manage, but at least he did seem to be dialing the number.

The branch Richie was on wobbled, and he clung to it for dear life.

“Hey, yeah, some weirdo got himself stuck in a tree,” the kid said.

“Fuck you too, kid!” Richie shouted, then stopped when it made the branch tremble even more. He wasn’t sure whether or not to pray for Eddie to be the one to take the call.

**

“Hi,” Eddie said. “Did you lose my number?”

“No,” Richie said, very gently showing Eddie his forearm without letting go of the branch. “See?”

Eddie stared at him. “Have you not showered since I last saw you?”

“What? No, I… I shower. It just doesn’t come off completely, so I retrace it, because I lose papers all the time and I keep forgetting to buy a phone and I didn’t want to lose your number so I just… Um. Did that. Like, not in a creepy way, though, it was just very nice of you to… uh… and I don’t want to write it down on a post-it and have it get eaten by the ASSHOLE CAT that trapped me up here.” He nodded at Margaret, sitting in the window and swishing her naked little tail. “See her? She did this to me on purpose, I’m telling you. And the worst part is I’m still gonna keep cuddling her after this, like a big ol’ jackass.”

Eddie laughed. “Okay, well, come on. You can feud with the cat later, now let’s get you into the basket with me.”

“Mhmm,” Richie managed, letting out an undignified squeak when Eddie wrapped his arms around Richie and started rolling him from the branch to the basket. “Ohhhh, fuck.”

“Breathe,” Eddie snorted. “I’ve got you.”

He pulled a little harder, and Richie flailed, but he was already in the basket and between Eddie’s legs. This was not how he wanted to end up here, but they were nice, thick, strong legs indeed.

“There we go,” Eddie said, brushing his hair out of his face. “See? You’re fine.”

_ Ah, _ Richie thought,  _ another kink I just acquired. _

“Thanks, Lieutenant,” Richie said shakily.

“No problem,” Eddie said, helping him stand. “And please buy a phone. We can’t keep meeting like this.”

Richie laughed nervously. “Why not? It’s very romantic.”

“Until you fall out of a tree and die, sure,” Eddie said. “Just text me.”

**

“So I said it was romantic and he didn’t say it wasn’t,” Richie said. “Right? Like… yeah? So he’s not just worried about me as, like, a good Samaritan, right?”

“Richie, please, god, just text the man,” Stan said.

“He’s into you,” Bev assured. “You don’t write your number all the way across someone’s forearm just as a concerned citizen.”

“What if he just wants a booty call, though?” Richie whispered. “I mean, not that I’d say no, but I think I really like this guy and…”

“Just  _ text him,” _ Bev groaned.

Richie whined, but he quickly tapped out a  _ new phone who dis? _ and sent it. “Holy shit that was the dumbest first text I could have sent,” Richie breathed. “Can you delete texts?”

“No,” Stan said.

“Fuck!”

His phone vibrated and for some reason he dove under the table to see the response, like that would hide him from the embarrassment.

_ Glad I can finally stop worrying about how you’ll get my attention next. Was really worried you’d just light yourself on fire or something _

Richie groaned.  _ they! were! accidents!  _ he typed frantically.

Moments later his phone buzzed again.  _ If you say so. But text is better _

Richie squeaked and shoved the phone over the edge of the table. “What does this mean?”

“It means he wants to talk to you,” Stan sighed.

“But like… does that mean he doesn’t like seeing me…?” Richie croaked. “Like, he’s… like…?”

“Richie,” Bev sighed. “You’ve got the number of a hot firefighter who wants to talk to you, just go for it.”

Richie groans, but dutifully types out,  _ so what’s your mom wearing tonight?  _ because he can’t think of a single normal thing to say.

_ Here’s a better question: what are YOU wearing? _

Richie’s heart skips a beat, but there’s another text before he can get ahead of himself.  _ I’m asking because I assume you’ve been invited to some kind of weird queer dad barbeque and I’d love to see how those go _

Richie laughs despite himself and immediately types back,  _ well we try to talk about football but none of us actually knows anything about it so we’re all just trying to fool each other _

_ We play fire dept vs police dept all the time if you want insider info _

_ i do. why is the ball not ball shaped _

_ To confuse outsiders _

_ i knew it _

“I think this is going well,” Richie whispered.

“Can you get out from under the table, then?” Stan asked.

“No, I live here now,” Richie replied. Margaret took this as a good sign to sit on his face.

**

They texted for the next several days. Richie now had a list of things he knew about Eddie: he’d once been a nervous wreck studying for a desk job to please his mother before he had had a minor nervous breakdown and had, all in one go, decided to eat an entire tub of rocky road ice cream in one sitting, get a tattoo and join the firefighter academy, and now he lived with two firefighters, a writer and one salamander named Sparky. He also liked comic books, fluffy 90s pop, shitty disaster movies and period romances.

According to Bev, Stan and Richie’s common sense that had to work overtime to overcome his gay panic, these were things you said to someone you liked.  _ Like _ liked.

And currently, that very hot guy who apparently  _ like _ liked Richie was right across the street, jogging down 5th Avenue. Richie took one look at the rainbow tattoo snaking its way around Eddie’s thigh and walked straight into a parking sign and nearly tumbled into traffic.

Eddie was across the street and dragging Richie back onto the curb in moments.

“You good there?” Eddie asked.

“Shorts,” Richie managed.  _ Short _ shorts. Red, show-every-inch-of-those-muscled-legs shorts.

“Yes, Rich,” Eddie laughed. “I wear shorts sometimes.”

“Oh,” Richie managed. The nickname rattled around in his brain before geting squeezed out by the realization that he’d honest to god squeaked out  _ shorts _ upon seeing his crush wearing shorts. “Oh god, sorry, no, I just… I’m not… uh…”

“Since I’m finally seeing you while not on call, want to get a milkshake?” Eddie asked. “On me.”

“What?!” Richie squeaked, wishing he didn’t sound like such a virgin. It wasn’t as though he’d never had sex before. He and Connor had had plenty of sex, under the covers with the lights off, both trying not to acknowledge that the other was a man. He’d never simply hooked up with someone off the street.

“There’s a milkshake place a block down from here,” Eddie said. 

For a long moment, Richie found himself trying to figure out what a  _ milkshake place _ could possibly mean, before it clicked. “Oh, like… actual milkshakes,” Richie breathed, relieved.

Eddie stared at him for a moment too long and Richie wanted to throw himself into traffic. “Did you think milkshake was referring to my dick?”

“No,” Richie managed. “What? No. That would be crazy.” In retrospect, it was pretty obvious.

“I tend to save that sort of thing for the third date,” Eddie said.

“So this would be… number one?” Richie asked. He’d never been on a date in public before. Actually, he wasn’t sure he’d ever exactly been on a  _ date _ before, so much as he’d been in a very secret relationship that no one was allowed to know about.

“Yes,” Eddie said, finally cracking a smile. It was a very nice smile. “This would be date.”

“Oh, cool,” Richie managed. “Cool, I… Have uh… been on those before.”

“You said you had an ex,” Eddie said, raising a brow. “Kind of assumed you’d experienced at least one date.”

“Yeah, but that was more of a ‘when his cousin visited our apartment for an hour he hid me in the actual closet and then forgot me there for the rest of the day’ sort of thing,” Richie said. “Which is, like, way more depressing than I thought it was before saying it out loud.”

“Okay, well, this is an actual date,” Eddie said, putting a hand on the small of Richie’s back. “And if I forget you in any closets you’re very much entitled to just stab me.”

Richie huffed a laugh. 

“Jeez, I think you gave yourself a black-eye walking into that street sign,” Eddie said, checking his face.

“Oh, I have a shiner pretty much weekly,” Richie said. “I’ve been pulled aside by pretty much everyone I know to ask if I need help but I think frankly it’s just that I grew about two feet in less than a year and never adjusted.”

“So for our third date I’m just going to have to wrap you in bubble wrap, huh?” Eddie teased.

“Have you,” Richie started before his throat dried up and he had to start again. “Have you already decided there’s gonna be a third date?”

“I decided there was gonna be a third date when you got stuck in a tree chasing a perfectly safe cat,” Eddie replied, catching Richie as he moved to cross the street without noticing the light was red.

Richie giggled nervously. “Wow, okay,” he said. “You saw me teetering on that branch and said, ‘Well, someone’s gotta sleep with him.’”

“Something like that,” Eddie laughed.

“In that case,” Richie said, “I’m sure you’ll find it very sexy to know that I am  _ regularly _ a danger to myself.”

“I’m driven mad with lust,” Eddie replied, rolling his eyes. “And I’m  _ definitely _ wrapping you in bubble wrap.”

“Can you make a hole for my face so we can kiss?” Richie asked.

“And breathe,” Eddie pointed out.

“But mostly kiss,” Richie argued.

Eddie sighed. “Sure.”

Richie beamed at him. “Then I’m in.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is obviously SUPER nsfw, but it is also... softe
> 
> anyway thank you for all the comments!!! they are all so kind!!! i will try to reply to them all at some point but i am just one man

“Mike, c’mere for a second,” Bill said, leaning over the kitchen counter.

“Don’t,” Eddie warned.

“Yes?” Mike asked, because of course Bill had boyfriend rights, and Eddie, at best, had roommate rights (otherwise known as the right to be teased into madness.)

“Eddie is cleaning the kitchen with a toothbrush,” Bill reported.

“Eddie,” Mike said. “Don’t do that.”

“I’m not…!” Eddie protested. “I was just  _ finally _ cleaning out the bathtub so the stains are gone and then I came here to bleach the kitchen and there’s a  _ stain _ on the tile  _ right  _ under the…”

“Eddie, you understand the man you’ve invited over here tonight is the same man you pulled out of a tree, right?” Bill asked.

“Yes, Bill, I  _ understand _ that,” Eddie griped. “And if I don’t mind, now that I know the stain is there, I would  _ like--!” _

He didn’t finish his sentence before Mike was lifting him clean off his feet and out of the kitchen. “Deep breaths,” he said calmly. “Just take a second to calm your nerves and  _ then  _ decide how much you want to clean the kitchen for your date.”

“I’m gonna take those deep breaths and shove them up your--!” Eddie started, but this time he was interrupted by the doorbell. “Oh no.”

Ben got up from where he’d been anxiously watching this all go down and opened the door.

“Hi,” Beverly said. Apparently, she was Richie’s best friend from high school. (Stanley, he said, was his best friend from  _ elementary, _ which was totally different.) “Richie is early.”

“Oh, you were at the station,” Ben said.

Eddie fought himself out of Mike’s grip to peer around the corner to find Richie flattened against the wall. “She’s lying,” Richie informed him weakly. “I’m not here at all.”

Eddie sighed, raising a brow. Richie had attempted to dress up nicely, clearly, because his pants were normal jeans and his hair had clearly been recently tamed (but wasn’t keen on staying that way) and he was wearing a fairly palatable button-up over his band tee. But he was still over six feet of gangly limbs, crooked glasses and expressions that belonged on some kind of deeply unfortunate cartoon.

And Eddie very much liked him. “Well, I guess then we’ll invite her in and you can continue not being here until our date,” he said.

“Wait, wait no,” Richie said, skidding over to the door and nearly colliding with the frame.

Wile E Coyote. That was the cartoon Richie reminded Eddie of.

“I’m sorry,” Richie said breathlessly. “I just really didn’t want to be late, so I thought I’ll just add minutes to my best guesses of how long it takes to get here and Bev tends to run late too so she asked when I need a ride and I told her an earlier time and then she showed up on time! And then when I told her we should, like, stop somewhere and kill some time, she just drove here! And…!” 

Beverly was currently eyeing Ben like she intended to eat him alive. “So, what’s your name, champ?”

“Uhhh,” Ben said, looking at them for moral support.

“Oh my god,” Richie said, rubbing his hands over his face. “She’s usually better behaved than this.” He wrapped his arms around her middle and dragged her out while she tried to hand Ben a post-it note while mouthing  _ call me! _

Eddie watched as Richie stumbled outside with her, failing to close the door while he hurriedly whispered, “Bev, you can’t try to get laid while  _ I’m _ trying to get laid!”

“I’m just giving him my number,” Bev said. “And now I’ve done it. Have fun!”

“Beverly Marsh, you’re a real bastard,” Richie hissed. “Now shoo!”

He ducked back inside, breathless and blushy.

Eddie cleared his throat. “Mike, Ben, your shifts are starting soon, right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mike said. “C’mon, Bill, I’ll drop you off at the library.”

Bill reached over to shake Richie’s hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you,” Bill said. “Eddie has said terrible things about you, but with that gleam in his eye he gets when he’s  _ really _ into--” 

Mike lifted him off his feet and dragged him outside, because sometimes he did seem to care about Eddie.

Richie waved at them, bemused, and watched the door slam shut, leaving Eddie alone with Richie.

And he was wearing bright yellow latex gloves. He cleared his throat quickly and tugged them off. “I didn’t have a chance to clean the kitchen before you arrived,” he said.

“Don’t you clean on weekends?” Richie asked. Eddie felt a surge of feelings at the fact that Richie had remembered that after one text mentioning it. “It’s only Tuesday.”

“I like to clean before having company,” Eddie grumbled.

“Oh, well,” Richie said. “You don’t have to worry about me, I’ve got low standards. I once lost a pancake under the counter and just gave up on it.”

Eddie tried not to let that horror consumed him.

“Then again, that was also the time I learned that roach infestations are a very serious problem and then I resolved not to do that again,” Richie said. “But also, how often does one really drop an entire pancake? Right? Anyway, I don’t let food rot under my cabinets as a habit but also you don’t have to clean for me, is my point.” 

He was babbling at this point, which was fascinating to watch as someone who also babbled under pressure. Eddie was going to interrupt him, right as soon as he got over how charming it was how Richie fidgeted under pressure.

Richie made an odd shivery motion with his whole body, then blurted, “SO, yeah, how about that sex date?” and immediately tried to lean his whole weight onto the counter at the wrong angle, sending his hand sliding along the countertop and into a glass cup, which promptly shattered. 

For a moment, neither of them moved.

“I am, as you see, a master of seduction,” Richie said, very calmly.

Eddie got a clean kitchen rag from the nearest drawer and carefully used it to lift Richie’s bloody hand out of the shards and wrap it slightly while he marched Richie to the bathroom.

“Oh,  _ now _ it’s started stinging,” Richie said. “Oh, ooh, okay, I was wondering why it didn’t hurt but apparently it just took a second.”

“It does that,” Eddie said.

“You weren’t fast enough with the bubble wrap,” Richie teased.

“Let’s just hope this doesn’t warrant an emergency room visit,” Eddie said, sitting him down on the edge of the tub and checking his hand. It had several small shards of glass driven into it, but it didn’t seem to have cut anything serious. “Alright, you’ll live, but I’ve got to go get my headlight and some tweezers, so just don’t...” He sighed, considering all the ways Richie had gotten himself into trouble. “Don’t do  _ anything.” _

“Okie dokie,” Richie said, sounding rather frazzled.

Eddie hurried to get the light from the hallway cabinet and the tweezers from his nail kit and returned, settling in to get all the shards out of his hand. Richie hissed, but took it with little complaint.

He was, in fact, being worryingly quiet. Eddie glanced up at him. “You good?”

“We’re not gonna have sex tonight, are we?” Richie asked, tone slightly hard to nail down. Like a mix of relief and disappointment and shame.

“You know you don’t  _ have _ to have sex on the third date, right?” Eddie asked. Richie sighed heavily, pouting at him. “Do you  _ want _ sex tonight?”

“I want sex,” Richie said, voice wavering slightly.

“I think,” Eddie said, smiling, “that you’re more of a sex on the tenth date sort of person.”

“Is there gonna be a tenth date?” Richie asked, his adorable buck teeth digging into his bottom lip hopefully as he watched Eddie set aside the tweezers and grab the first-aid kit to disinfect and bandage.

Eddie snorted. He’d been texting back and forth with Richie pretty much nonstop. They’d had two very fun dates in which Richie had made him laugh like no one else could. And Eddie was  _ not _ being subtle about the fact that he found Richie attractive. “Yes, Richard, there will be a tenth date.”

“Okay,” Richie said, shoulders relaxing. “Should I call Bev to pick me up?”

“Does this date feel over to you?” Eddie asked, because if anything, there was something very tender about wrapping Richie’s hand in gauze and the mood had not at all been ruined by Richie’s continued disasters. “I’m going to gently bandage this hand and then we can watch movies and eat snacks, dumbass.”

“I don’t know!” Richie protested. “I’ve only ever done stuff with two guys! And one was my childhood bully who threatened to gut me if I told anyone we made out behind the movie theater we both worked at and then he was fired for sexual harassment of a girl who worked with us, and the other was Connor, who was basically an extended hookup I lived with for several months.”

Eddie sighed. “You’re awfully worrisome sometimes, you know that?”

“I come from a small town in Maine,” Richie said. “Options were limited.” He was scuffing his feet on the floor and not making eye contact.

“I had a girlfriend for several years,” Eddie admitted. “Which is bad enough on its own, because I’m definitely  _ gay _ gay, but she also looked exactly like my mother.”

Richie let out a laugh that he clearly hadn’t intended. “Ah, and here I thought  _ I _ was the motherfucker.”

Eddie pinched his side, drawing a very satisfying squeak from him, and continued. “She got super pissed about the whole…” He gestured at the tattoo on his arm.

“The tattoo-ice-cream-firefighting binge event?” Richie asked, grinning ear to ear.

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “And so I dumped her. And I was… uh…  _ maybe _ a little brutal about it. I sort of sent her an apology email a year later after I’d gotten a  _ lot  _ of sex with dudes out of my system, and we’re on… well, I don’t hide when I run into her at the supermarket anymore sort of terms.”

Richie laughed, though his eyes were wide. “Hang on, what’s… what’s a  _ lot _ of sex with dudes?”

“Basically as much sex as I could have while being wildly aggravating about STI testing,” Eddie said, smoothing out the finished bandage. “Which, actually, is still a lot, because apparently some guys are into that. Especially from a guy with a rank.”

He winked, and Richie went red. “Yeah, Stan and Bev lost their shit when he saw me scanning my test results,” he said, clearing his throat in a very telling way. “I had to thank Stanley, because he was the one who made me do them, in case I got back into dating. Which, like, I told him he should just let me cry and keep watching Dirty Dancing on repeat for a few more days, but apparently STI testing  _ takes _ a while and  _ you won’t feel this way in a couple months, Richie.” _

“And here you are,” Eddie said. “Anyway, yeah, Bill was my roommate at the time, and when he met Mike through me, they hit it off pretty fast. And I was the third wheel, usually, so Mike did a lot of setting me up with guys and showing me gay bars as a sort of ‘hi sorry I’m banging your best friend and roommate’ present, I guess.”

Richie sniggered at that. “That’s very polite of him.”

“Mike’s a polite guy,” Eddie said. “Though he certainly doesn’t let up when someone needs a good haggling, you know? He knew I liked you the  _ second _ I told him about your weird mom joke attempt.”

“You already liked me then?” Richie said, preening with a bravado he probably couldn’t back up with actual confidence. “It was my dazzling smile, eh?”

“You looked like a frightened plague rat,” Eddie said. “You were covered in soot head to toe. But the uh… the kidding around was kinda cute, I guess. And very determined.”

“I  _ am _ determined to make a fool of myself, thank you,” Richie said, wriggling his toes.

Eddie snorted, packing away his tools. “I’m going to clean up the kitchen.”

Richie trotted after him, dancing around him awkwardly as he got out the bleach and gloves and carefully picked up the pieces of glass.

“We’re gonna have sex, though, right?” Richie asked, plucking at his fresh bandage until Eddie smacked his hand away. “Like, with the lights on?”

Eddie figured that was probably about halfway a joke. “Alright, what are you used to?” he asked, tying off the trash bag and slipping it into a second bag, just in case. “I’m clearly going to have to raise your standards.”

Richie blushed even harder than he’d been before. “It was okay sex, I guess,” he said. “A little rushed, usually.”

“Have you ever bottomed?” Eddie guessed.

Richie shook his head. “Nope,” he said. “On account of… I am tall.”

Eddie smiled. “Well, I prefer topping.”

“Hm,” Richie said, pretending to measure up how tall Eddie was. “Can you reach that far?”

“Ha-fucking-ha,” Eddie said. “I’m gonna end you, Beanpole.”

Richie giggled, bouncing up to sit on the counter and swing his feet.

Eddie pursed his lips at the ass on the counter, then decided that it made Richie duck his head in a very cute way to still be able to make eye contact with Eddie, and that it was worth the small risk of dirt on the counter. “We can leave the lights on,” he promised. “And even stay face-to-face.”

“Whoooa Nelly,” Richie said, giggling nervously. “Let’s not get crazy here.”

“Oh, well, in that case,” Eddie joked. “How do you feel about doggy style?”

This time, though, he did manage to catch Richie when he keeled off the counter.

**

“I’m glad I don’t have to get stuck in a tree to get between your legs like this,” Richie remarked.

He was resting back against Eddie’s chest, Eddie’s knees on either side of him while Eddie stroked his hair. Eddie sighed. It had certainly made him feel something, having Richie quaking between his thighs, and now that Richie had confirmed that they’d both enjoyed it, Eddie had to know how far this compatibility went. “How do you feel about bite marks?” he asked.

Richie choked on air. “Excuse me?!”

“Right…” Eddie said, tugging aside his shirt to smooth his fingers over the side of Richie’s throat, “here.”

Richie made an odd strangled noise. “People at work might see!”

“Is that a problem?” Eddie asked calmly.

Richie twisted his head around and blinked up at him. “Um,” he managed. “No?”

“Okay,” Eddie said, smiling softly. “Then scooch up.”

Richie wriggled so his back was against Eddie’s sternum, giving Eddie access to the back of his neck. He brushed Richie’s hair aside and held him steady as he sucked a hickey into his neck and then bit down on it.

Richie moaned, already squirming so that his long legs brushed together. Eddie reached a hand down as far as he could to stroke the insides of his thighs through his pants, leaving another little mark behind Richie’s ear before he pulled away. “How about we take this to the bedroom and get a little more naked.”

“Okay,” Richie said, vibrating with nerves. “Yeah, good, yes.” He nearly fell over stumbling off the couch. Eddie caught him, turning off the TV and putting both hands on Richie’s shoulders to steer him into the bedroom. He sat Richie down on the bed, jokingly pretending to make extra sure Richie couldn’t fall over and hit his head.

“Oh,  _ ha,” _ Richie replied.

Eddie grinned and tugged his pants off.

Richie gawked at him. “Actually, maybe I could just blow you,” he squeaked.

Eddie looked down at his body, then back at the way Richie was slipping his hands between his thighs, covering his chest with his arms. He rolled his eyes. “Let me see,” he said gently.

Richie worried at his lip for a moment, then carefully tugged his shirt off.

As gangly as he was, his stomach was pudgy and soft. His back was littered with freckles and small scars from acne, and stretch marks pulled all the way across his shoulders and sides. Eddie thumbed at them gently. “You weren’t kidding about the growth spurts, huh,” he said softly.

“No, I was not,” Richie said. “Two feet in less than a year. I  _ still _ don’t understand how tall I am.”

“That explains a lot,” Eddie teased.

“Bev says at least I grew into my face a little better,” Richie said, dropping his eyes nervously. “I was a really goofy looking kid, all squishy faced and buck toothed.”

“I  _ love _ your teeth,” Eddie said. “They’re  _ so _ cute.”

Richie melted a little under the praise. “Really?”

“And I like these too,” Eddie said, running his fingers up the stretch marks.

“Really really?” Richie asked.

“Really really really,” Eddie murmured.

“I’ve got more of these puppies,” Richie teased, even though his fingers still wavered nervously over his pants button. “Talk about shooting up, my legs were like bamboo shoots. One day I was an ordinarily proportioned pudgy-faced child and then next I was all leg.”

“Good,” Eddie said. 

Richie hesitantly shoved his pants down, clearing his throat. His boxers had dinosaurs on them. Eddie was absolutely going to have wild sex with this man. 

He ran his hands down Richie’s thighs to feel out the stretch marks. They ran down to the knee, white and scraggly and fascinating. Eddie pressed a kiss to them, and Richie’s breath hitched, legs flailing ever so slightly with badly contained energy.

“Okay, I’m… I’m naked,” Richie said. “Now your turn. I’ve earned my hot firefighter gawking time.”

Eddie laughed. “Sure,” he said, pulling his shirt off and dropping his boxers.

Richie’s jaw dropped. “Fuck me,” he whined. “Is your  _ dick _ jacked too or am I imagining it?”

Eddie laughed. 

Richie reached forward to press his fingers against the scar on Eddie’s chest. 

“The floor collapsed under me,” Eddie murmured. “And I landed badly on some rebar. I had to do rehab for weeks because I bruised my spine.”

“Shit,” Richie said. “It looks badass, though.”

Eddie smiled. “I’m not perfect either.”

“Uh, dude,” Richie said. “I hate to break it to you, but you’re a tattooed Adonis with a badass battle scar, that’s hardly a downside. I could  _ maybe _ dock you points for being short, but...”

Eddie snorted. “I’m average height, asshole.”

“See?” Richie whined. “You’re  _ so _ out of my league.”

“Richie Tozier,” Eddie said. “You’re a good looking man and you have so much character to your looks it’s oozing out of your whole body. You’ve got an adorable smile and nice hair and nice legs.”

“I do have a lot of leg,” Richie said, blushing bright red.

Eddie kissed him, shoving him up the bed carefully. Richie kissed him back, making little noises as Eddie’s tongue pressed against his.

He pulled back, leaving Richie breathless and slack jawed on the bed, wild hair fanning out around him.

“You up for sex?” Eddie asked softly.

Richie nodded feverishly. “Yeah, yep, so ready.”

Eddie laughed, getting lube, condoms and wipes from the drawer. “You sure you’re okay with bottoming?”

Richie nodded at that too. “I’ve, uh, never tried it, though,” he said. “Like, not even my own fingers.”

“Okay,” Eddie said. “I’ll go slow.”

“What are the wipes for?” Richie asked.

“I’m not great at moving on with sex if I can’t stop thinking about where my fingers have been,” Eddie explained. “I used to wear gloves but it’s sort of a hassle, so I made myself settle for wet wipes.”

“Ah,” Richie said. “I, um, I cleaned myself. Like, as well as I could. And also shaved my legs and hurt myself falling over while doing so, so… I’m super prepared.”

Eddie lifted his leg to find a bruise on his shin. It didn’t look very bad, but Richie’s legs were very smooth otherwise. He sighed. “You’re a mess.”

“I know,” Richie said. “Anyway, screw me?”

Eddie chuckled at that, lubing up a finger and pressing it to Richie’s hole. “Let me know the second something doesn’t feel good, okay?”

Richie nodded. “I will.”

Eddie worried at the skin there for a moment. Richie’s eyes followed him nervously. “Relax,” Eddie said smoothly, taking Richie’s hand with his free hand like he had when they’d first met and squeezing. “You’re okay.”

Richie took a deep breath and settled back against the pillows. Eddie pushed his finger in, and Richie made a strangled noise.

“Give it a second,” Eddie murmured. “It’ll feel weird, but it shouldn’t hurt.”

“Okay,” Richie said, brow furrowing sweetly.

Eddie grinned into his knee and slowly worked his finger in.

Richie burst out laughing, and Eddie paused. “What?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, I just did a quick recap of how I got here and it’s  _ so _ fucking funny,” Richie wheezed. “I just… I need a second.”

He was laughing even harder, and Eddie was laughing mostly at his laugh at this point. He hadn’t exactly planned on getting this far when he’d first sat with Richie, struggling to inject a sense of humor into being dragged out of a burning building and twitching all over with panic, but he had to say, he didn’t mind that fate had worked out like this.

“Oh, oh god,” Richie giggled. “Oh, it’s  _ really _ weird to laugh with a finger inside you.”

Eddie burst out laughing for real. “Yeah, you think?”

They laughed until finally they could both take deep breaths and calm down, and Richie relaxed even better than he had before. “Alright, I’m ready to get fucked like an adult,” Richie said.

“You really like grazing the edge of disturbing imagery, huh?” Eddie snorted, pressing a second finger in.

“That’s comedy, baby,” Richie grinned, then gasped as Eddie hit his prostate. “Ohhhkay I get it.”

“This is just the beginning,” Eddie teased.

“Being tall is a cheat,” Richie whined. 

Eddie shook his head, grinning, and focused on hitting Richie’s prostate with every thrust. Richie hummed in pleasure, gasping occasionally.

“Agh?” he managed when Eddie pushed in a third finger. “Weird.”

“You’re great at dirty talk,” Eddie said.

“Yep,” Richie said, voice shaking. “I mean, what do I know? You decided to date me after I got stuck in a tree chasing a cat, maybe blurting dumb shit is, like, a kink of yours. You’re a mystery.”

Eddie shook his head, scissoring his fingers. Richie let out a hearty little moan. “You’re good at that, though,” Eddie said.

“No words, only noises?” Richie teased.

Eddie pressed one of his legs up towards his chest. “Something like that.”

“Mnnnn,” Richie replied. “I think - oh! - I can manage something like - ah! - that!” He whined, groaning as Eddie spread him wide. “Oh, fuck, I think I might have been… like… bad at fingering?”

Eddie chuckled. “I’ve gotten a fair amount of feedback,” he said. “Had some time to figure it out.” He zeroed in on Richie’s prostate and Richie groaned, head lolling back.

“Are we, uh,” Richie said, struggling really hard to string together a full sentence, “are we really doing it doggy style?”

“Do you want to?” Eddie asked gently.

“Yeah,” Richie said, voice wobbling as he twitched with a good thrust.

Eddie drew his fingers out.

“Ugh,” Richie said. “That feels gross.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, wiping his hands. “But if I do my job right you won’t care much about it when I’m done fucking you.”

Richie’s eyes went wide. “Oh,” he said.

“Yeah,” Eddie said, grinning. “Hands and knees, sweetheart.”

“I’m guessing your dirty talk has been shaped by people who were very into your biceps,” Richie said.

“You could say that.”

“Um,” Richie said, slipping his glasses off. “Can you actually… be more like… when we first met?”

“You want me to walk you through sex like I did through smoke inhalation?” Eddie teased.

Richie squirmed, obviously embarrassed. “Yes?”

Eddie softened. “Okay,” he said. “But  _ don’t _ mention my mother while my dick is inside you,  _ please.” _

Richie laughed shakily. “But if you think about it, she’s technically the one to give me this dick, so…”

“Stop,” Eddie warned, pressing Richie into turning around and getting on his hands and knees. He rolled on the condom and slicked himself up. “Ready?” He stroked Richie’s back comfortingly. “I’ll go slow, just breathe.”

Richie took a slow breath, letting it out as Eddie pressed his tip to Richie’s hole.

“Want me to keep talking you through this as I go?” Eddie asked.

“Uh,” Richie said. “Yes? I don’t know yet.”

“Alright,” Eddie said. “I’m gonna press in. It’s okay if it stings a little but if you’re uncomfortable, say so.” He pressed forward, nice and slow, a hand splayed over Richie’s soft tummy. He chuckled. “Squishy.”

“Hey,” Richie whined.

“It’s a compliment, I promise,” Eddie murmured. “I’m gonna try to bottom out, okay?”

“Mhmm,” Richie managed, strangled, and let Eddie slide forward, listening to Richie’s breath hitching.

“How’s that feel?” Eddie asked.

“Good,” Richie said.

“Okay,” Eddie said. “Gonna give you a thrust, how about it?”

Richie nodded again, breathless against Eddie. “Okay, okay, fuck,” Richie said. “Can… Can you like… fucking rail me gently?” 

Eddie took a moment of thought to confirm that he had in fact heard that correctly. “Can I what?”

“Just… like… um,” Richie said. “I’ve never really  _ asked _ for things during sex, man, I don’t know!”

“You understand that railing you,” Eddie said slowly, “would probably… not be gentle.”

“I know, but like,” Richie said, whining softly. “Like with words.”

“You want me to go hard but talk gentle?” Eddie tried.

“Yes,” Richie managed, relieved. “Please.”

Eddie laughed. “What’s sexier to you, that I’m a strong firefighter or that I held your hand when we first met?”

“Both,” Richie whined. “Can I have both?”

“Absolutely,” Eddie said, heart soaring as he hitched Richie’s hips up, tightening his arm around Richie’s middle and supporting himself better on his free hand. “I really do love your squishy lil tummy.” He thumbed at Richie’s side gently.

He thrust hard into Richie.

“Oh!” Richie managed, moaning when Eddie thrust again, then again. “Oh damn.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, kissing his back as he continued to snap his hips. “That’s it. You’re taking me really well, just keep breathing.”

Richie’s arms gave out, moans escalating as Eddie shifted to lean over him further, weaving their fingers together above Richie’s shoulders as he sped up his thrusts. 

“Ooooh, fuck,” Richie gasped. “Oh, yeah,  _ Eddie.” _

“You sound so good moaning my name like that,” Eddie murmured. “Can you keep doing that?”

Richie nodded quickly.

“Good,” Eddie said, kissing his back. “Do that, then. You’re doing great.”

Richie mewled, breathing a soft little, “Eddie, Eddie, god,  _ Eddie.” _

Eddie grinned, adjusting his speed along with Richie’s noises until Richie was clawing at the sheets, hands pinning in place by Eddie’s own.

Eddie let go of one of his hands to wrap it around Richie’s dick, and Richie cried out, fingers tightening around Eddie’s hand hard as his noises picked up volume and pitch.

And then Richie shuddered against Eddie, coming hot over Eddie’s hand. Eddie resisted the urge to wipe his hand immediately and sped up, fucking Richie through his orgasm while tipping himself over into his own. He pulled Richie in tight to ride out the waves of pleasure, then pulled out.

Richie sank into the bed, moaning helplessly into the pillows. “Fuck,” he mumbled.

Eddie rubbed his back. “Well done. You were really hot.”

“Hrnng?” Richie managed to reply.

Eddie laughed, rolling Richie over to clean him up and strip the sheets to toss them into a pile next to his clothes. “Wanna cuddle?”

“Yes,” Richie mumbled softly.

Eddie smiled, kissing him. “Okay.”

He settled Richie on his chest.

“I’ll have to thank Margaret when I get home,” Richie muttered.

“Margaret?” Eddie asked.

“The cat,” Richie said. “For getting me stuck in a tree so you’d be wildly attracted to me.”

Eddie broke out into undignified giggles, and tugged Richie in for another kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stan: richie why are you feeding my cat an entire fish  
> richie: she got me laid i didn't know what else to do to thank her

**Author's Note:**

> this may have a second (smut) chapter wherein richie gets plowed by a hot firefigher like he deserves but who knows
> 
> our power has been out for 3 days now, please be nice to me


End file.
